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Until about the last 50 pages, I would have rated this book much higher (probably a 4 of 5), but I admit I hated the ending and felt it ruined much of the book.

In a nutshell, a freak accident causes a chain of people to be able to access the memory of the next person in the chain -- A can read B's memories, B can read C's, etc. Most of the novel deals with the ramifications of this: what does privacy mean, how problematic is it if you now know classified information you aren't cleared for, how do you cope with remembering another's racism or abuse (either victim or perpetrator), etc.

Things I liked about this book:
- Interesting theme. A lot of Robert Sawyer's stand alone novels posit a single technological change in the near term future, and explore the ramifications of this change primarily through attention on a small focal group of characters. This largely follows that pattern.

- Complete characters. A few characters are essentially placeholders, but several are well developed, conflicted individuals cast in shades of gray.

Things I did not like about this book:
- Mystical spiritual ending out of nowhere. I felt the ending was both saccharine and cheesy, and the rules changed abruptly and with very little internal consistency. I don't like that.

- Lack of internal consistency. The change posited in the book was caused by a freak event, but then suddenly mutates without following any of the established rules of how it worked.

Things I did not like about this book: